{"id":63599,"date":"2026-04-30T16:19:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=63599"},"modified":"2026-04-30T16:19:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:19:03","slug":"goossen-on-project-planet-and-rediscovering-the-international-geophysical-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2026\/04\/30\/goossen-on-project-planet-and-rediscovering-the-international-geophysical-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Goossen on ‘Project Planet’ and Rediscovering the International Geophysical Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Goossen<\/a>, Assistant Professor of International History at the Pardee School, joined\u00a0students Rebecca Eigner (BAIR ’29) and Patrick Slover (BAIR ’28) on The<\/em> Politica<\/em>, a Boston University undergraduate-run podcast focused on political science and international relations, where he discussed the history and research behind his forthcoming book, Project Planet: A History of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The book aims to<\/span> reexamine one of the most ambitious experiments in global scientific cooperation. In the interview, Goossen described the International Geophysical Year (IGY) as a massive, 18\u2011month \u201cbig science\u201d initiative that brought together scientists, technicians, and observers from around the world to study Earth as an interconnected planetary system. \u201cIf we all pool our resources,\u201d he explained, summarizing the organizers\u2019 vision, \u201cwe\u2019ll be able to do something collectively that none of us would be able to do alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Goossen emphasized that while the IGY is best remembered today for launching the space age, most famously through the Soviet Union\u2019s Sputnik satellite, it was far broader in scope. The program helped establish permanent research stations in Antarctica, produced key evidence supporting continental drift and the later theory of plate tectonics, and generated early data confirming human\u2011caused climate change, including the beginnings of the Keeling Curve. His book seeks to recover this fuller global story, showing how the IGY reshaped scientific understandings of the planet even amid Cold War rivalry and the collapse of European empires.<\/p>\n

A central theme of Goossen\u2019s research is the role of newly independent countries in the Global South. Although framed as a nonpolitical endeavor, the IGY depended on worldwide participation, giving these states real leverage in the production of planetary knowledge. Because global observation required stations across every continent and ocean, Goossen noted, newly independent countries \u201chad an opportunity to contribute to the International Geophysical Year, and because of the disproportionate size of that contribution, they also had an opportunity to make claims on the scientific results.\u201d At the same time, he cautioned that the benefits were uneven, with the United States and Soviet Union using shared data to advance military and space programs.<\/p>\n

Finally, Goossen argued that the IGY\u2019s legacy extended well beyond its official end in 1958. Rather than collapsing under Cold War competition, the program strengthened international scientific cooperation, most notably through the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which reserved the continent for peaceful research. In this sense, the IGY marked a turning point: a project initially driven by national interest that ultimately revealed the deep interconnectedness and fragility of Earth\u2019s systems, a lesson that continues to shape global environmental politics today.<\/p>\n

Learn more about Professor Goossen’s forthcoming book on his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The full interview can be listened to on Spotify here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Benjamin W. Goossen is Assistant Professor of International History at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. His research and teaching concern European and international history, science and technology studies, and the history of the environment. Read more about Benjamin W. Goossen on his faculty profile.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Goossen, Assistant Professor of International History at the Pardee School, joined\u00a0students Rebecca Eigner (BAIR ’29) and Patrick Slover (BAIR ’28) on The Politica, a Boston University undergraduate-run podcast focused on political science and international relations, where he discussed the history and research behind his forthcoming book, Project Planet: A History of the 1957-1958 International…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25562,"featured_media":63088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8410,8432],"tags":[13478,13474,13477,13476,13433,11853,8565,13475,8579],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63600,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63599\/revisions\/63600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}